A Group-Oriented Approach Model of management A Group-Oriented Approach By Luke, Penny & Shannon

About the article... This article is about Group-oriented approach. R. Lewis begins the chapter where the focus of discussion is on the reasons for the student’s behaviour and student’s mistaken goals, the term group oriented approach was developed by Rudolf Dreikurs (February 8, 1897 – May 25, 1972). Dreikurs’ theory is based on understanding the purposes of misbehaviour in children and for stimulating cooperative behaviour without punishment or reward.

Dreikurs described four "mistaken goals" that such children would resort to, and outlined the most effective ways teachers and parents can respond.

Issues like natural and logical consequences and the roles of encouragement and classroom meetings that apply to both Dreikurs and William Glasser’s approaches. Further in the chapter Lewis discusses the ten step system for handling unacceptable behaviour which is based on Glasser’s group oriented approach.

Teacher-oriented approach Defintions Teacher-oriented approach Teacher based approach is interested in the child conforming. In this approach the ‘choice’ offered to students is either do as they are told or to be punished with a consequence.

Student-oriented approach Group-oriented approach Group oriented approach’s aim is for the teacher to work with the students and allow them to have a large say in the decision making. Children are believed to have a genuine right to determine their own behaviour, to set limits on themselves.

Dreikurs Approach

Mistaken Goals 1. Attention getting 2. Power seeking Dreikurs group-oriented approach describes four aims of children’s inappropriate behaviour. These aims are: 1. Attention getting 2. Power seeking 3. Revenge seeking 4. Withdrawl

Attention Seeking ‘The need to get special attention.’ The student’s aim is to get and keep the attention of the teacher. The behaviour usually stops after it is attended to, but only for a short time and then it becomes a regular occurance. This student behaviour usually makes the teacher feel irritated or annoyed. Balson (1992) gives typical examples of attention getting behaviour, children in whom he calls: The ‘walking question mark.’ The ‘clown.’ The ‘sloppy or slow worker.’ The ‘bashful or shy’ child.

Power ‘The need to get other people to do what they want or show them that they won’t do what other want.’ The student believe that they are only worthwhile if they are the boss and in charge. These student’s are often argumentative, deceitful, contradictory, tantrum-prone or stubborn. They rarely respond to normal telling off, they will try is resist in some way and draw the teacher into a fight. Teacher’s feel consistently confronted, angry and retaliatory

Revenge ‘The need to hurt others as much as they fell hurt by them.’ These children only feel important when they can hurt other people. They are so discouraged that the only way they can regain some sense of status to get even. Their behaviour is extremely hurtful, they steal, destroy property and are sometimes violent and vicious. They consistenly frighten teachers.

Withdrawl ‘The need to be left alone.’ These type of student’s just give up, their only aim is to avoid further rejection so they will try to appear stupid or by being unavailable they hope to be left alone. Most of these student’s have the ability to achieve but are deeply discouraged. They see themselves are failures and no longer have any reason to try. Teachers who deal with withdrawing students generally feel powerless and tend to despair.

Four basic steps for dealing with inappropriate behaviour 1. don't 'fall-in' and react inthinkingly. 2. provide encouragement. 3. apply natural and logical consequences. 4. work towards putting students in contact with their 'mistaken goals'.

Don't react unthinkingly When a teacher is confronted with inappropriate behaviour they should never react instinctively. Two reasons for this are: It will only maintain the student’s behaviour, it will not help stop it. The teacher’s instinctive reaction will usually further discourage what is, in essence, not a bad or naughty student but a discouraged child. The ideal response should be to remain calm and considered.

Provide encouragement Major emphasis is placed on giving students who behave inappropriately lots of encouragement. It is not the behaviour that should be encouraged, but the person. Providing encouragement to all students, not only the misbehaving ones, it will let them know that they belong, and are useful and important members of the class who can contribute in socially acceptable ways. In Dreikur’s group-oriented approach, he believes that it is important when talking about encouragement to distinguish between recognising achievement and recognising effort. This process may take a long time to come about, so the next step can be used in the mean time.

Natural and logical consequences Natural consequences: do not require any action by another person, they simply happen as a result of the behaviour. E.g. a student leaves their lunch at home goes hungry. Logical consequences: do not occur as a natural result of the behaviour. They require someone else to give out the consequence in response to behaviour. E.g. a student is late for class will make up the time in their lunch break.

Helping change 'mistaken goals' This is the final step in Dreikurs’ group-oriented approach and it involve dealing with the fact that the student has a ‘mistaken goal’. There are two reasons in why you should inform students of their mistaken understanding of the world and they are: 1. It can help confirm the teacher’s assessment of the student’s reason for behaving inappropriately is correct; that is whether the student is attention seeking, power seeking, revenge seeking or withdrawing. 2. It enables the student to become aware of their motivation and to realise that a pattern of unacceptable behaviour is not the way to gain the sort of recognition and feelings of belonging they really want.

Classroom meetings Dreikurs group-oriented approach suggest that part of implementing steps 2, 3 and 4, that teachers should use classroom meetings. These are regular meetings held with all the class members so that all good and bad aspects of classroom routines can be discussed. Every person has a voice and are treated equally. These meetings provide students with the opportunities to engage in the decision making process and provide ways of planning for change. According to Dreikurs, specific discussion about the mistaken goals of individual students and ways that can be sought out to help these students feel more accepted by their classmates should occur at these meetings. Where as Glasser believes that there are three types of classroom meetings. One focuses on solving social problems, the second deals with educational matters and the third allows fro discussion of any issues of intellectual interest.

Glasser's ten steps

Summary

Discussion What are the pro’s and con’s of both Dreikur’s group-oriented approach and Glasser’s? Which approach would you use as a teacher to deal with inappropriate behaviour? Do you think that the author was impartial?